It was the first week of June, and all the evidence
of sum-mer was apparent. Carelessly scrawled etchings designed from white shoe
polish decorated random vehicles that moved down the streets; vehicles that
unmistakably be-longed to the vivacious senior class members.

The high
school’s courtyard, which was usually littered with an overly abundant number
of unruly adolescents dur-ing lunch hour, was now left bare, as the crowd
gleefully gathered at more convivial venues with far more freedoms.

Aspirations of freshman year in college dashed
through the minds and conversations of thirty or so of the latest Eastview High
graduates as they all gathered around pizza and hot wings at Duley’s, perhaps
the most popular of the local hangout spots. Duley’s—a fast food-type bistro
with more arcade games and bowling lanes than tables to eat at, had served as
an escape for the teenage crowd for several years now. The stomping ground was
named after the ex-varsity football player and highly popular character
Chris-tian Duley.

He was a
legendary player from the 1980s whom also happened to be the owner of the
joint, and may as well have issued membership cards to the loyal pack of teen
cus-tomers. It was a well-known, though unspoken, rule that non-Eastview High
students weren’t forthrightly welcome. Every now and then, a group of defiant
stragglers from a rival high school would test the waters and enter the
un-welcoming zone, only soon to find out just how serious Eastview students
were when it came to safeguarding their turf. They were territorial to say the
least.

The wall
space of the restaurant was covered with pho-tographs, some in color, and
others in black and white. Pho-tographs of playoff and championship highlights
from the past twenty-five or so seasons were an obvious indicator of the merit
that was placed on the school’s athletic track rec-ord. Each corner of the
slightly dilapidated building was filled with a separate young couple, unable
to keep their lips from touching. Discussions of part two of the senior trip to
the Gulf, the unendorsed and more sinister part, bounced around from table to
table as the newly-made young adults basked in every new moment of their
maturing milestone.

In the rear
southwest corner of the building, fully en-gaged on a classic, and apparently
worn-out pinball ma-chine, was Joseph, last season’s varsity star quarterback.

It had been
several decades since a machine of this era had seen its heyday, but Joseph
always seemed to show his appreciation toward it by paying a visit to it at
least once a week.Pinned to the wall
above the machine was a color photo encased in a cheap frame—Joseph, arm
cocked, aim-ing for a game winning pass in overtime. This photo alone was the
true reason why Joseph visited this particular pin-ball machine so much, though
he was much too humble to ever admit it. Sporting a perfectly fitted gold and
red let-terman’s jacket, Joseph attacked the old pinball machine with precise
movements, demonstrating his unchanging lev-el of competitiveness that seemed
to nurture his spirit.

The pinball
machine tilted from left to right and back left again as Joseph aggressively
tapped the controls. He was just 60 points away from conquering the top score,
the score that has been held by him since the end of last semes-ter. Somehow,
two thin arms managed to wrap themselves around his waist in the midst of the
grunts and serious faces he made while punishing the machine.“Hey there, sweet-ie,” a soft voice whispered
in his ear.

Joseph took
a slow, deep breath as he inhaled the easily recognizable perfume that had now
saturated the air around him. It was Mary, his long-time high school
sweetheart, who had known exactly which pinball machine Joseph would be
playing, even before she stepped one foot into Duley’s.

Joseph’s
eyes slowly began to close, and his hands in-stantly came to a standstill. The
little white ball that Joseph previously committed to knocking around the
pinball ma-chine was no longer important, and it soon disappeared into the pit of
the ram shackled contraption. Five minutes ago, Joseph dropped two dollars into
the machine, and at the time, it was all that mattered to him. But not even his
com-petitive tendencies could contend with Mary’s presence.

“Is that a
new perfume?” Joseph asked, in a frolicking manner.

“You should
know. You bought it,” Mary whipped back.

“Well, I
like it,” Joseph replied in a matching humorous tone.

Joseph then
grasped Mary’s wrists, and in one swift mo-tion, he rotated her slender body in
front of his so they could face each other.

“Whoa!”
Mary screamed, as she simultaneously released a girly-like chuckle.

“Game Over”
echoed in the background as the pinball machine began to return to the same
idle mode it had been in for the past two days before Joseph visited it.

“What took
you so long to get here?” Joseph asked, as he gave Mary a soft, non-invasive
peck on the lips.

“Did you
miss me?”

“Um, not
really.”

“Liar.”

“You always
know when I’m lying.”

“Perhaps
it’s because I’ve known you since kindergar-ten.”

“Since you
had your crush on me in kindergarten,” Jo-seph countered.

“I did
not,” Mary yelled as she returned once again to her soft chuckle.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, you
liked me too.”

“And still
do.”

“That’s
right, sweetheart.”

“So,
really, what took so long?” Joseph asked again, as the two made their way to a
booth that still had pizza crumbs on it from two customers ago.

Mary
immediately went into a ten-minute divulgence of every activity she had engaged
in for the entire day. It was summer and she had a lot going on. Mary was a big
talker, and though Joseph frequently nodded his head and was always sure to
maintain eye contact during the conversa-tion, his fatigued mind was often
elsewhere after about three minutes into it. Mary was too busy talking to
notice the lack of concentration.

After she
finally finished the details of her daily itiner-ary, the couple began to
discuss plans for entering college this upcoming semester. Mary had been
accepted into six different universities, and Joseph, five. After very little
consideration and discussion, they strategically arranged to attend the
university that had offered them both admis-sions— the University of California
at Los Angeles. It was a deal that took no negotiating or the need to solicit
second options. Neither Joseph nor Mary would let separation come between them,
and a long-distance relationship would have been emotional suicide for both of
them.

Mary
scolded Joseph for not yet submitting his appli-cation for dormitory residence.
Mary was on top of every-thing and had faxed all required documentation, along
with her high school transcript, to the admissions office two days after school
ended.

“You’re
such a procrastinator,” Mary repeatedly told Joseph, as she reprimanded him in
her “serious” tone. Jo-seph haughtily accepted the rebuke and passed Mary a
handsome smile. Then they both smiled, and gave each oth-er one last peck on
the lips.

“Are you
ready to head to the movies?” Joseph proposed in an encouraging manner, knowing
that if he asked Marynow, it would
still likely be another fifteen minutes before she was actually ready to leave.
Punctuality wasn’t one of her strongest points.

“Well,
actually, I wanted to chat with Amanda and Bethany for a few minutes, is that
okay?”

“Fine with
me. I’ll hang out with Chad until you’re ready.”

The couple
split and walked to opposite sections of the building, each one stopping to
briefly chat with at least five other people before reaching their targets.

Joseph and
Mary were the ideal couple, a classic example of honest love. Voted ‘Most
Likely to Get Married’ just weeks ago, the two were a crowd favorite amongst
their peers. Even from afar, their high school teachers admired the
reciprocated devotion they held toward one another. What Joseph and Mary shared
was not the familiar act of unpretentious teenage lust, but instead, their
relationship was a representation of what true love was supposed to be. Their
alliance seemed almost flawless; an illustration even seasoned married couples
could analyze in order to build a healthier relationship. Their bond was so
tight that not even the strongest impasse could breach it. As mature as their
relationship was, it was guilelessly engineered on religious fundamentals, and
neither mate ever dared approach the other with ungodly solicitations. At
times, however, their gregarious presentation was deceiving. As social, lively,
and entertaining the two could be, behind the scenes they both lived very
simple and noncomplex lives.

They were
popular, but neither one desired a fancy life-style. As a matter of fact, they
both had a disdain for re-ceiving too much attention. However, extra attention
was sometimes the driving force that aided in their personal, selfless agendas.
Joseph wanted to be a preacher one day, desiring to evangelize around the
world, and Mary was still undecided on her prospective career, though she knew
she had a passion for human services or social work. Mary be-lieved in saving
the world one day at a time.

Though her
meager salary at the little ice cream shop she had worked for since 10th grade
was nowhere near enough to save the world, she donated at least half her wages,
anonymously, to various non-profit organizations. St. Jude, Ronald McDonald
House, Greenpeace and Habitat for Humanity, to name a few, were thankful
recipients of her graciousness. The other half of her salary was usually given
to food banks or a local family in need. Mary, even at a considerably young
age, was well-known in the social ser-vices community, and as a result, had
received numerous small, but essential, scholarships from nearby institutions
where she frequently volunteered.

Joseph was
no stranger to social services either. Howev-er, he generally abstained from
the larger institutions such as Habitat for Humanity and would likely bypass
the op-portunity to collect canned goods for a food bank.

Instead, he
dedicated his time aiding illegal immigrants. In 8th grade, the mother of
Joseph’s best friend was deport-ed to Mexico, after a traffic stop gone wrong.
Joseph’s friend was sent to live with a poor aunt in south Texas for six months
before the aunt abandoned the responsibility of having another mouth to feed
and sent the child back to Mexico to live with his mother.

Two years later, Joseph became highly
committed to providing aid to immigrants. Assisting mothers in obtaining
government services to feed their children, ensuring chil-dren of illegal
immigrants were enrolled in school, helping immigrants obtain legal status and
finding legitimate work for illegal fathers were just some of the few
assignments Joseph regularly took part in on a weekly basis, usually on
weekends. It was a burdening task for such a young man.

His
organization, if you could call it that, is comprised of one other high school
buddy, an elementary school teacher and random volunteers. However, Joseph gets
the job done. He once lobbied for countless hours and made gentle, idle
threats, until the local grocery store chains all agreed to do-nate a small
percentage of their profits or food to help feed more than 75 illegal families.
It’s not easy getting a corpora-tion to brag about their participation in
abetting “illegals,” but Joseph, an 11th-grader at the time, was able to
negotiate a respectable agreement between the stores. He somehow managed to
adjust the attitude of each store manager after threatening a dose of negative
publicity and eventually had each one scrambling to be the first to donate.

The
attributes in Joseph and Mary’s personal lives couldn’t be more similar. They
both descended from deeply religious families who had passed down
ecclesiastical in-structions to their children as if it was a well-guarded
heir-loom. Their families clutched onto the Laws of Moses and followed God’s
word precisely. In this world of sin, where sexual desires surpassed moral
standards and shameless in-justices prevailed in the streets, the families of
Joseph and Mary were righteous in the eyes of the Lord.

SynopsisAuthor Kenneth Martin tells a
fascinating modern-day version of the oldest story on earth in a compelling,
intriguing and unique style. Martin transforms Mary and Joseph into high school
sweethearts attending UCLA, and throws all the aspects of modern day life at
them including media scrutiny, government assassination plots and devious
massacres, all of which keep Mary and Joseph on the run in order to protect the
Son of God from a disapproving government and the suspicious general public. If
you only read one book this year, make it The
Begotten Son.

Superb! Brilliant! Genius! The Begotten Son has all the traits of a
great novel--likable characters, a solid plot and suspense on every page.

Texas Association of Authors?is the only organization in Texas whose focus is to promote the authors within the great state of Texas itself. Texas Authors leverages the knowledge and expertise of many different authors to help promote others within the world of reading and writing.